Advances in the digital realm of consumer electronics and communications have made media content widely accessible to consumers. Consumers can choose from an assortment of media content provided on various outlets such as the Internet or subscriber television systems.
With an abundance of available media content and media content outlets, advertisers have numerous options for disseminating their advertisements. In general, advertisers seek to associate their advertisements with media content and media content outlets that will maximize the effectiveness of and return on investment generated by the advertisements.
One determining factor for the effectiveness of an advertisement campaign is the ability to target the campaign to an interested audience (i.e., a target audience). While conventional target advertising techniques can improve the effectiveness of an advertisement, there remains room for improvement. In the context of traditional broadcast television systems, for example, advertisements may be selected and inserted into commercial segments of programs based on geographic locations. For instance, when a particular television program is broadcast to a wide audience (e.g., a national audience), different local advertisements may be inserted for different geographic regions. However, such targeting is very broad and does not ensure that a particular viewer will experience advertisements that are interesting or relevant.
By way of another example, some conventional advertising techniques selectively identify and include advertisements in a presentation of a web page. The advertisements may be selected based on keywords that are determined to be related to the content of the web page. In theory, the matching of an advertisement keyword to the content of the web page provides a form of targeted advertising. However, the targeting is very broad and does not account for individual preferences or demographics. Selecting an advertisement based solely on the content of the web page requires that a content-based assumption be made about the demographics of the person viewing the web page. In some cases, the assumption may be wrong, and the person may be presented with advertisements that are of little or no interest.